Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Little Matchstick Girl ❯ Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Don't own Cowboy Bebop

 

P/S I don't really know how this will be received, but I hope you guys enjoy it.

 

Tharsis was the most desolate and lonely city she had ever encountered, and that aura seemed compounded within the confines of her most prominent, humble and neglected little cemetery.

 

Struck by the absence of a comforting breeze, Faye lit a cigarette and placed it on Spike's tombstone. Normally, she would have left Jet to do the honors: complain about how neglected his grave mound was, bend over to pick out some imaginary weeds, and then stand over the barren grave-patch to pay respects to his fallen comrade. But this was the first time in 3 years that Faye had ever visited Spike's grave alone.

 

Judging by the freshly denuded grave mound, Jet hadn't failed to show up.

 

He always did overdo the gardening. Faye thought sadly, lighting a cigarette for herself. Sighing, she pushed away the feelings Jet's name resonated with her now.

 

Bending over, she traced her finger along the grooves of Spike's name engraved on the tombstone. She recalled the day Jet had announced that ISSP had finished Spike's post-mortem. Apparently a bomb in his trench-coat had gone off, leaving the disembodied remains of the Cowboy she always believed would survive anything. She had adamantly refused to see the body, which Jet understood. What he hadn't understood was that she was adamantly against going to Spike's funeral altogether.

 

When she had clearly defined her decision, he had surprised her by saying nothing. The silent treatment, Faye had come to realize, was when Jet Black was really not in the mood for bullshit.

 

It seemed she didn't exist for him as he continued to get dressed: The ridiculous fedora hat, the outdated zoot suit. He blanked her when he bumped into her at the bathroom, ignored her yell when he accidentally stepped on her foot.

 

She didn't take to being ignored, so just to spite him (or so she thought - crafty old fox -), she waited for him in the living room. Having spent all her bounty money on a black suit, she was fully dressed and ready to go with him to the funeral. Only to spite him, she reminded herself, not to follow through with a custom Spike would have deplored.

 

What neither of them had expected, however, was her reaction to the small shoebox-sized parcel he carried.

 

“What's that? The sum of Spike's personal effects?” Faye asked derisively. Rational or not, right now she was blaming the both of them for forcing her to go to this funeral.

 

Jet fought with himself against physically removing her from his ship. After what seemed like an hour, he finally allowed her an answer: “It's his ashes.”

 

“WHAT?” Faye demanded, her voice a coarse whisper. She desperately hoped she hadn't heard right. Cigarette ashes, surely…

 

“They're his ashes, Faye.” He replied meaningfully, watching the blood drain from her face.

 

A fist seemed to have clamped itself around Faye's throat. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't… Oh my God.. Oh my God…

 

He really was dead. All that life, all that charisma, energy… Everything I loved and hated and admired and detested about a man.. was in a shoebox. The man of flesh and blood…Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

 

It should never have come down to that. It should never have happened to him. She couldn't stand the fact that everything she remembered about him had been burnt up. As if he never existed.

 

And suddenly it wasn't all about the funeral, or pissing Jet off. She locked herself into her bedroom and wouldn't come out for three days. She couldn't explain the intense grief, and Jet never tried asking.

 

They continued the following year as if none of that had ever happened. Jet never brought Spike's name up again until that fateful Valentine's day, two years before she mustered up enough courage to go and visit.

 

By then Jet and her had become a couple, the happiest experience in her life so far and yet something that always unsettled her whenever they visited the lonely cemetery together.

 

She had come to love Jet, and although she suspected Spike would have applauded (or smirked knowingly) at the pairing, Jet holding her hand and holding her about the shoulders just seemed… wrong. She had felt inexplicably dirty as they stood before Spike's grave. Like Ha-ha, I found happiness and you didn't.

 

Now that it was just her and Spike, she could freely admit that she felt guilty for betraying him. Spike was a childish infatuation, she realized, but standing there with Jet forced their relationship out in the open. She was finally forced to admit the depths of her feelings for Jet, in front of the only other person she had been close to. The only person she had been in love with.

 

The following year, Jet and Faye's relationship had become strained when they visited Spike again.

The more traditional-minded (read small-minded) women in her acquaintance circles would gossip that she had become a successful restaurateur at the cost of her relationship with Jet. Others would speculate that Jet was tired of being the housewife, while she the breadwinner.

 

The former of the two major debates surrounding her strained relationship with him was closer to the truth than she liked. Faye conceded that Jet's biggest hangup about her ambitions was that she never seemed satisfied with her successes. It was like she could only experience happiness at the risk of losing it. The fact that she had become smarter and more discriminating about her business transactions made him even more worried. He complained that she was still a gambler at heart, only that now Alva City was the House. “And the house always wins.” She'd mouth the unchanging part of his sermon with him. Sometimes he laughed, but most of the time he'd stomp off to vent his frustrations - “artistic integrity” he called it - on her garden hedges.

 

The latter point of heated gossip was laughable. Or was it? He had always been the housewife when she was poor, but did his natural inclination change when they had become a couple? Knowing Jet's sense of manly responsibilities, he probably did regret the fact that he couldn't take care of her as well as she could take care of him. He left for his bounty trips more often, stayed away a bit longer.

 

Instinctively realizing that he needed to feel useful, she didn't complain about his extended trips - in fact, she begged for stories of them as she prepared his favorite meal and served him a chilled mug of beer. She became his most avid fan: becoming hushed when he came close to real danger, shivered when he described the bounty (she was sure he elaborated on their descriptions… nobody could be cursed with that many boils on his nose and have an infra-red glass eye) and openly applauded at his triumphant capture.

 

They were such a looney pair, Faye thought, laughing reminiscently. The laugh turned into a bittersweet sob which she swallowed back into her throat.

 

Looking back on the `hard facts' of their life together, there never seemed to be anybody at fault for their eventual estrangement: she wanted to put her mark on Alva City and he went along with it despite the fact that he preferred the life of a vagabond.

 

But you know he was never really happy…

 

She was wrong when she thought that Spike had burnt away to nothing, not when he seemed so real and alive in her waking moments. She saw his confident grin in the face of every cocky college boy, heard his lazy, sensual voice in every lady's man that strolled through her restaurant, experienced his steely determination when she tried to bargain with taxi drivers… but she had never met anybody with his fire or pathos ever again.

 

That was something only she seemed to have, Jet had said enigmatically one evening when he'd returned from Ganymede.

 

Not knowing what to make of that statement, or afraid of what it might mean she spotted him cradling something in his pocket and asked “Souvenir?”

 

She had eyes like a hawk. “It's… nothing compared to what you can get in Alva City…”

 

“I don't care. As long as it came from you.” She said huskily, her hands creeping to his clenched hand. When he refused to open his fist, she pretended to pout. But there was more than one way to skin a cat, she thought as she slowly discarded her clothes, relishing his hot gaze, and then his hot mouth on hers… and every inch of her body.

 

“It was my grandmother's.” he said later as she studied the intricate jewellery box of inlaid mother-of-pearl and silver.

 

“It's beautiful.”

 

“Oh. I bought the box on earth for a decent price.” She hated it when he always degraded his own presents and told him so. He just laughed, kissing her on the nose. “Open it up and see what's inside.”

 

An impossibly delicate and intricate ring made of white-gold shone against the deep burgundy lining.

 

She stared at him in open-mouthed shock.

 

“Now, you know I don't believe in marriage. But no matter what, I want you to have this. Happy Valentine's Day.”

 

It wasn't quite the proposal she expected, and what did he mean by “no matter what”?

 

“I love you.” He said, looking deeply into her eyes.

 

“I love you too.” She replied, kissing him deeply to make up for her disappointed look.

 

Months later, as they stood side by side in front of Spike's plot, she was struck by guilt. An unfathomable guilt for visiting Spike in Jet's plain view. It was like having your trusty, solid, stoic husband stand to the side and just watch you fuck your crazy, younger, more energetic lover.

 

“It's the ungettable get that turns you on, isn't it?” he had asked her sadly when they had returned from the cemetery.

 

“If you don't want to come to the Mayor's dinner party tonight, why don't you just say so instead of blaming me?” she fired back, regretting it the minute she had spoken.

 

She knew he wasn't speaking about the dinner party.

 

By this time, Jet had come to know her inside and out, and if he had interpreted the look of discomfort on her face as guilt and shame… well, he never really said it. He didn't need to.

She had also come to know the inner workings of Jet Black, and she could hear his heart splinter when she deliberately denied him the truth.

 

A glance away is only worth 5 seconds. A crook of the eyebrow even less. Who REALLY knows what the other person is thinking?… Faye rationalized, wondering whether she really did feel Jet give up on her as much as the end of their relationship was just something… inevitable.

 

When he left her, she felt Jet's admonition of happiness at the risk of loss come to life. She already felt the empty life that awaited her the minute he told her “I can't do this anymore.”.

She begged, she pleaded, promised him she'd leave the restaurant business forever and travel the galaxy with nobody but him as company… “And I won't throw out your really comfy, nasty tightey-whiteys..” she added at the end of her long list of promises. She winced now at how pathetic she was. No wonder he left, it sounded like she really didn't know what it was he needed.

 

He listened to all of this with a charmingly patient smile on his face. But at the end of the day, he only bent to pick her up by the elbows and hug her one last time.

 

“I love you.” He said, his deep rumbling voice tinged with longing. She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him hungrily, passionately, desperately… with every fibre of her being she could possess.

 

“No..” he said gently, removing her arms from his neck. “You have no idea how hard this is.”

 

“I can make it harder…” she teased. “I love you…”

 

He squeezed her arms so reassuringly, the way she loved him to do, she stared into his face, remembering all the lines and curves that made his expression so gentle and so wise and sometimes so clueless… She noticed the hesitance in his eyes. Maybe he was going to stay?

 

But he shook his head at her. “You need to make me a promise.”

 

“I'm not going to promise I won't look for you.” She replied vehemently, her eyes flashing dangerously.

 

“If I even smell you coming after me, I'm going to disappear. You're never going to see me again.” He threatened, his eyes bordering on anger and frustration.

 

“What are you trying to hide?” she asked him, suddenly realizing that there was something he hadn't told her.

 

But his face had closed against her. “I'm going.” He said with finality, picking up his duffle bag and walking out the doors.

 

“What are you trying to protect me from???” she demanded again, picking up a rolling pin and aiming it at his stupid, fat balding head!

 

“This isn't about you, Faye!!!!” He shouted back from the ground after the rolling pin hit him with a resounding THWACK!

 

“THEN TELL ME WHAT IT IS YOU'RE KEEPING FROM ME!!!”

 

“I'm moving back with Alisa.”

 

“I don't believe you.” she stated in an indignant tone. “I KNOW you. How stupid do you take me for?”

 

“It's true.” He stated in just as calm a tone, reaching into his back pocket and taking out a picture of a newborn baby. “That baby is mine.”

 

“It doesn't even look like you.”

 

The bulging vein in his forehead clearly showed that he was at his limit. “Babies change everyday.” At her pained silence, he continued. “Alisa LOVES me, Faye.”

 

That hurt her to the core. “Just go.” She replied, turning away from him.

 

Now she knew he was waiting for something she'd never be able to admit. That she may have loved Jet, but that she was still in love with Spike.

 

“The ungettable get.” Faye whispered. She hadn't realized that she had gotten tired of standing and was now sitting on the plot with her back to the tombstone.

 

“Certifiable.” Her most trusted friend, Marjorie, had called her. “Only a movie star can ever experience a love triangle between her boyfriend and a dead guy who loved somebody else so completely. It's just sooo… unreal!~!”

 

For the first time, she had finally understood Spike's obsession for Julia. Loving and living with a person for two years really fucked her boundaries up, (especially when her other half picked up and left). For half a year, she didn't know what was real anymore: she'd forgotten whether she was the one who liked cream with two sugars, whose childhood memory was whose or whether she even liked the smell of coffee in the morning. Other times she still lived in lieu of Jet's opinion until she realized that it was just her.

 

“You need a shrink.” Marjorie told her in her typically blunt fashion.

 

“I need a break.” Faye admitted, deciding against tearing down her boundaries again for a psychological interloper, the therapist.

 

With Spike as a reminder, she forced herself to get up. She took a break from management and did something that was closer to people. Start a dating agency. Marjorie called her plan a twisted, sado-masochistic form of self-therapy but agreed to be the manager.

 

Faye was adamant that the dating service would be classy but intimate and fun in ways only a group of friends could be. People could register via website, but ultimately their first meeting with each other would only be arranged by the dating agency, in groups of 8. Four men, four women with Faye herself as Hostess. Marjorie had added that the dating venues need not be limited to restaurants, but could involve community activities… “Really get the people involved with Alva City and vice versa, you know?”

 

The thought of herself, Faye “the shrew” taking part in community events wearing cheap-print shirts and having fun had her breaking out in fits of laughter.

 

“You snob!!!” Marjorie yelled indignantly, tossing a pillow at her.

 

“No. No. I love it. Really.” Faye nestled behind Marjorie at the computer console as she feverishly typed out the Dating Agency specs.

 

“What would you like to call it?” Marjorie asked as Faye drank her 6th martini and was preparing to pour one for Marjorie.

 

Second Chances. Faye thought, struck by an unexpected wave of regret and reminiscence. Marjorie noticed her rubbing the intricate ring Jet had given her on Valentine's Day.

 

“If I ask you now, you're bound to come up with a really tragic name.” Marjorie said, taking her by the hand. “And if I catch you at another time, you're going to come up with the name of a card game instead …”

 

“Crazy Eights?” Faye supplied automatically. “Sure as hell can't be Solitaire…or Russian Roulette..”

 

Marjorie looked at her as if she sprouted another head before she gave her an admiring smile. “Crazy Eights. It might be your toxic martini speaking right now, but I like it. Although Russian Roulette has a more honest ring to it.”

 

And so Faye found herself again in Crazy Eights. Her rapport with other restaurants had improved, and the community and charity organizations had given her an unexpected… dare she say it? Warmth and belonging, something she had first experienced on the Bebop, and learned more of from Jet.

 

And this year, well, she was finally left alone with Spike. She watched the sun go down over Tharsis city, idly wondering what it was about the enigmatic, anti-social, barbaric Cowboy that had her enthralled.

 

Sleeping Dawn. Sitting Bull had called her when she went to him asking for Jet's whereabouts. Somebody who hides and denies her nature to rise and to illuminate.. The one who cannot see the truth.

 

“Tell me something else I don't know.” She retorted, finishing her drag on the pipe. “I know Jet isn't having an affair with Alisa. I feel it in my bones. He's in trouble, or WILL be. Can't you tell me where he is?” She didn't have enough dirt on his ISSP comrades to extort the truth from them, YET, so she hoped the soothsayer Jet had mentioned would lead her in the right direction.

 

Instead of answering her question, he gave her something else to contemplate: You will come face to face with the dead. There is no point in fighting him. Killing him will mean your death as well.